Bootsie and Snudge
1 9 6 0 - 1 9 6 3 (UK)
98 x 30 minute episodes
1 9 7 4 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes
After being demobbed from The Army Game, Alfie Bass and
Bill Fraser tasted life in civvy street in Bootsie and Snudge.
Bootsie was a handyman and Snudge the pompous doorman/Hall Porter
at The Imperial, an old-fashioned club on Pall Mall in London.
The club was run by hot-headed secretary, the Rt Hon Sec
Hesketh Pendleton, and Bootsie and Snudge were joined by
83-year-old club employee Henry Beebohm Johnson.
Old Johnson's addled mind convinced him at first that Snudge
was Lord Kitchener returned to life, and he was prone to prattling
on about the "fuzzy-wuzzies" and bumbling in the
befuddled manner that Clive Dunn would later bring to the part of
Corporal Jones in Dad's Army.
Storylines centred often around complications caused by the
Imperial's members and guests, but mostly around the
inter-relationships between the four staff and, in particular,
Bootsie and Snudge.
Marty Feldman and Barry Took wrote the majority of the earlier
episodes, but had moved on by the third series in 1962 - 63. A
number of future TV stars passed through the series in minor roles
when relatively or completely unknown. Amongst them were Warren
Mitchell, Honor Blackman and Mollie Sugden.
In 1964, Bootsie and Snudge moved into the Diplomatic Service
in Foreign Affairs and the famous duo was laid to rest until an
unsuccessful one-series revival in 1974 when, in a reversal of
positions, Bootsie wins a million pounds (and 27 pence) on the
football pools and has to suffer Snudge (now an employee of
Permapools) in a subservient role as his financial adviser.
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